DeOps

Decentralized Operations

The Vision

I found this minute long clip of Steve Jobs in 1990 describing exactly the vision behind DeOps.

It's been over 20 years and Steve Job's vision of a dynamic organization has not been
realized (successfully) yet. DeOps is my attempt at pushing the vision forward.

My own vision of DeOps stemmed from organizing development of my open source Gnutella
client Gnucleus way back in 2003. My idea was to create a hierarchical version control system
where changes would be reviewed as they were pushed up the hierarchy, and flow back down to
other contributors. Since then, Git has made a lot of this vision reality for developers.

In 2006 I started development of DeOps as a more general user tool for creating the
'dynamic hierarchical organization' where people could coordinate themselves securely
in a scalable, decentralized, fault tolerate network that could survive network outages and
fragmentation in different scenarios. As well as being able to work 'offline' coordinating
behind firewalls and in places with limted internet access like in disaster areas.

DeOps is coordination
software that allows people to create a bottom-up hierarchy of trust. By declaring the
structure of the organization in software and giving its members control of the structure,
the organization becomes a living thing that can change and adapt rapidly, while providing
full transparency to its members.

Services

On top of the organizational structure there are traditional services like storage, communication,
and planning - built with a hierarchical twist and leveraging a P2P network to maintain persistence
and synchronization.

Hierarchical File System

A synchronized file system between all users, similar in theory to git.

Files and folders added to the system are inherited automatically down the hierarchy.

Changes must be reviewed before moving up the hierarchy.

A history is kept for each file.

Files are stored encrypted on the local disk.

Hierarchical Voice Chat

The idea is that in a real-time situation important information is able to climb from the lowest levels rapidly.

The right headphone is your superior and his/her subordinates, the left headphone are your subordinates.

For example in a 10,000 person organization, 4 levels, each person with 10 subs, then
your right headphone would be 10 people, and your left headphone would be 10 people.
Which is a lot more managable than a 10,000 person conference call.

Other Services

Calendar - An interactive matrix of time by users. Plans are inherited by subordinates.

Demo

This is an run through of the services included with DeOps. Sorry about the audio, I need to re-record it.

The Core

The Hierarchy

Hierarchies serve organizations because they reduce the signal to noise ratio for each user, allowing them to work more effectively. Each user can choose 1 person to trust as a superior. As a result the entire hierarchy is built bottom-up and can change dynamically at any time. DeOps supports matrix organizations with a main functional hierarchy, and separate project hierarchies with their own files systems and communication lines.

The Network

A 'Global IM' network is available for inter-organization communication.

Multiple computers can be used simultaneously with the same account and everything will be synchronized.

Scalable into the millions, data storage is distributed, DeOps instances can be run in the cloud.

Security

Data and communication in the organization is secured by the organization itself, no 3rd party storage. Personal data and communication is secured by your own key, there is no one to recover your password from. All communication is encrypted, ports are randomized, traffic cannot be fingerprinted.

Client

Windows graphical client

Android client in Beta

Console client - Can be run on linux as a daemon to give a network more persistance .

DeOps Library - Backend that can be used for building clients for any platform.